Devine Image
by thandie-16
Summary: Just after Freak Nation. Will be M/A eventually. will start out M/L though. Rating will eventually go up and will involve lots of character study. "They need to start working if they are going to survive. the time to start is now."


There is chaos everywhere. Extreme chaos. Extreme, loud and about to be violent chaos. Max is somewhere in the middle of the chaos, yelling to be heard over the multitudinous voices all vying for her (and apparently everyone else's on the plant) attention. Alec knows this more from following her voice than from seeing her. Though her presence is powerful, all five feet 3 inches of her is lost in a sea of much larger bodies. He sighs heavily, trying to work out the kink in his neck without actually moving his arm, which isn't so much hurting now as throbbing painfully with each heartbeat. Declaring war, or peace in the middle of a warzone as Max would probably put it, was never going to be easy; then again, that was Max. Making the hard stands from rash decisions that affected more people than she would ever think to consider. He sighs again. It's going to be a long…. Long.

With that he brings his arm (the one that is not trying to kill him with pain and/or blood loss) to his lips and blows hard. The whistling sound he makes is loud… very loud and shrill. Annoying enough to have the entire room of very tired transgenics, most with very sensitive hearing, crying out in pain and anger. He smiles to himself. Gets them to shut up though.

"Now-" he says, letting his voice lilt lazily, but dangerously. Putting just enough authority behind his tone to keep them quiet. "Isn't that better? Look, I know you all have a lot of questions and concerns. All of which I am sure are valid and need to be heard. But right now, right here, is NOT the time to do it."

He lets his gaze wonder about the room, making eye contact with the most important and most volatile persons in the area. Using every trick manticore taught him to be a good leader.

"There is a lot of shit to be done right now. Shit that is more important to our survival tonight than to our general ideas of what the next step should be and, let's face it boys and girls, with that many people out to kill us tonight if we don't buck up and start acting more like soldiers than whiny brats… there won't be a next step to take."

He sees more than a few backs straighten and heads held high. He doesn't like this, like returning to what he was, but it's necessary. They will be sitting ducks should any norms, police or otherwise, try something right now. That cannot stand.

"Mole?"

The little grunt he makes is enough for Alec to locate him in the crowd, customary cigar and shotgun in tow. "We need a perimeter. We need to know how many miles of fence we have, who is outside it, what the weak points are and we need patrols. How many men do you need?"

Mole chews on his cigar but for a second, working the numbers out in his head before he responds.

"14"

"Volunteers?" Enough hands go up that Alec knows he won't be assigning anyone to their posts tonight. He's glad for that though he's not sure why.

"Luke, we need a list of everyone in here. It can't be completed tonight but we need something, some method or procedure to start, got it?"

Luke nods quickly, looking so much like an over-excited puppy Alec has to bite back the slightly hysterical laughter bubbling at the back of his throat.

"Dix, we need somewhere for all these people to sleep, clean-ish water and we need to get some sort of surveillance system up. Nothing too fancy for the moment but something that will let us know if someone's coming in, think you can swing it?"

Dix tilts his head slightly before nodding. "I'll need some help but I can rig something up in less than 2 hours."

Alec then turns his attention to the dog man standing to his right; Joshua is standing mostly still waiting patiently for whatever Alec will say. It was always a quality in Josh that Alec admired, his patience. He had never managed to master that lesson.

"We're gonna need some food and some blankets or towels and we're gonna need it soon."

"Big fella take care of it." Josh says with a note of finality and Alec smiles at him, turning his attention back to the crowd in front of him.

"We survive tonight first then deal with tomorrow. We'll meet at 0700 hours tomorrow in the…" Alec frowns at Dix, silently asking for a location. He's been here a while but TC is still the anomalies place, they know it better than he does.

"The NuEnergy Building, over on Dacon Street. The mess there is big enough to hold everyone comfortably."

Alec looks out at the crowd who are suddenly looking up at him for direction. He doesn't want this, but at least it's only for tonight.

"All right, beat it all of you. Make yourselves useful."

The crowd starts to disperse immediately having received their dismissal, however informal it may have been. His arm chooses that moment to stab painfully at his wound and he grips it hard, noticing for the first time that Max is right there beside him, OC on her tail. He swallows thickly; he doesn't imagine that she appreciates him taking charge like that, even if it was necessary. The girls pride is legendary and… after all it is HIM. She's never particularly pleased with anything he does and judging by her cold look this isn't going to be pretty.

"I didn't get my orders." She says it coolly, her voice sounding razor sharp and he isn't sure if she is mocking him or actually asking for guidance.

"Well," he says cocky swagger firmly back in place. "I'm sure Mole would appreciate someone around him preventing him from shooting the norms and getting us all killed."

His heart nearly stops when she turns around and starts to leave the room. That's when he's sure he's dead and this is some strange sort of purgatory. It's not possible that she just LISTENED.

"Close ya mouth before ya start to catch flies boy. My girl knows how to accept a little help when she needs it." OC's tone isn't sharp but it's definitely pointed.

"Yes ma'am." He says smirking at her. She rolls her eyes in that exasperated manner that only she can truly achieve and grabs him by the arm that is not bleeding.

"Now come on and get some medical attention before ya start bleeding out what little brains you got left."

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Damn it. Their rather pathetic excuse for a medical bay is rather empty. That means no distractions for-

"X5-494 I told you get here over an hour ago. You better tell me that bullet isn't still in your arm or I will put another one in you." The voice yelling at him is beautiful really. All light melodious tones that fitted perfectly with the brown skin, petite build and light hair. If only her voice wasn't icy at the moment.

Alec gives her his best smile and tries his best not to back away from her. Seriously, is it too much to expect that one, JUST ONE of the women in his life would not threaten him with violence?

"There were things that needed to be-"

"Shut up. Just get on the bed."

Alec's smirk is slow and deliberately sexy. Most women would be dropping their panties by now. Catherine's frown, if possible, gets deeper.

He ducks his head and does NOT sulk into room she's pointing at.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It is incredibly late (or incredibly early depending on how one chose to look at it) by the time Max finds the little office building near the outskirts of T.C. that will be housing their group, at least for tonight. She sighs heavily as she enters the building, immediately hearing the shower running on the floor above her because of the quiet that is blanketing TC at the moment. It's like the whole world has suddenly stopped on the point of a knife, waiting for some small stimulus to send them careening off it in one direction or the other. God, how she hopes that stimulus doesn't come. She doesn't know if she made the right decision today. Taking a stand in the middle of a city - a world that hates them does not seem smart with hours of reflection behind it, but… my God did it feel right. It feels right to be together, to stop running, to make everyone face what they have done and demand compensation in the form of freedom for the years of suffering they have all endured.

"Hey boo, finally made it back huh?" Max glances up to see OC dressed in… well she's not sure what it was or what it's supposed to be but it covers the relevant bits so she supposes it's doing it's job.

"Yeah, had to stay with Mole until I was sure he wouldn't start shooting people the moment I left. It took a while. Besides, don't need that much sleep with the shark in me."

OC nods slowly but doesn't take her eyes off of Max.

"Long day huh?" It's Max's turn to nod this time as she sits gingerly on a near by stool, surveying the room. Logan is knocked out on a couch in one corner, it's been an equally long day for him and she knows he was helping Dix set up those cameras for a long time. Josh is on the floor beside the couch snoring softly and peacefully. Sometimes she wishes she had his innocence, it's supposed to be bliss after all. Lastly there is Alec. Alec, who is lying on some sort of sheet/comforter/large towel - fast asleep with a frown on his face. It must be a sign of the times. Alec of all people isn't sleeping well.

"Ya boy surprised me today. Didn't know he had that in him."

Max glances at OC who is watching her carefully and shrugs.

"Yeah it was real impressive, but I'm sure he'll be screwing up again by tomorrow. Old habits die hard." And she is sure of it too. So Alec had spoke up and made a couple decent decisions. It was the manticore in him that had been talking and she isn't pleased about how he did it either. It is going to be a long process trying to de-manticore-ify all of the transgenics yes, but, the sooner they started the better. The last thing they need is someone yelling at them like some long lost drill sergeant.

OC smiles lightly and shrugs. "I guess we'll see. Time will answer all the questions we have boo."

Max frowns at her incredulously. "You don't really think this "good guy" version of Alec is going to last do you? This is the same Alec we're talking about right?"

OC just shrugs, letting her eyes linger on Alec's sleeping figure. "I always thought you were too hard on him. Don't matter though. Not really. Got bigger fish to fry. What's gonna happen tomorrow?"

Max shrugs off her jacket and slumps down on the floor beside her friend. The thought had crossed her mind more than once tonight. Tomorrow is going to prove to be an important day. She can feel it in her bones. If she can't convince them to stay they'll all start leaving in a sort of mass exodus that she is sure will spell the end of transgenics. She can't explain how or why she feels so strongly about this but… she does. Sighing deeply, she steels herself for the day ahead of her. "I don't know. I really don't know."

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Max stares out at the crowd of transgenics making their way into the hall. They had survived the night, unlikely as it had seemed 12 hours ago, with little to no incident. There was a blockade that had and was continuing to go up around terminal city and a few idiot, mostly drunk norms that had tried stoning this section of fence or scaling another but that had been stopped quickly and easily. Now comes the hard part. Convincing everyone that what is obviously a horrid tactical decision (putting all your targets in one place is never strategically sound advice) will be a wise survival decision.

When everyone seems to be inside and mostly quiet, Josh turns to her and smiles, motioning her to stand on (what she assumed was) the old lunch counter so everyone can see her. It had taken a long bitter argument between herself, Mole, Josh and Alec this morning to ensure her right to speak. In the end she's still not sure who won the argument or even who is on which side of it but the simple fact is that she will be the first one to address them all today. The first one to have the chance to win their support. She's never been a leader, not in anything, but she's never actually been a follower either so she supposes that's pretty good too. She doesn't know what exactly it is she is going to say but more than a leader or a follower, she's never been a loser and is not about to start today. With that thought she takes the deepest breath she can manage and starts to speak.

"Hello, most of you don't know me, but I know you. My name is Max and… I want to help."


End file.
